The next Tiger Woods?

Cute, huh?

Random happy snaps of the Thomas boys

Elliot's favourite animal these days is a tiger, but not just any tiger, a super tiger who flies.

Just look at those eye lashes.

Elliot can fearlessly climb anything these days!

Ollie's watching for birds and kitty cats, his favourite morning ritual.

Our little TV junkie. We so have to be careful with this guy or he'd watch TV all day long!

Walking with Daddy

A regular little Einstein

These days, I'm learning all sorts of stuff and just love showing off my blossoming intellect. Here are just a couple of amazing feats that I'm capable of:

1. I can count to 30 and say my ABC's with only a handful of mistakes.
2. I've started writing my name and other letters.
3. I'm learning my right and my left.
4. I can read a couple of words like 'Elliot' and 'Oliver' and 'stop'.
5. I've started to add small numbers without even using my fingers.
6. I can rattle off dozens of songs and nursery rhymes. My favourite is my punk rock version of Baa Baa Black Sheep.
7. I've learned how to turn off the TV and DVD player when my movie is over and also how to turn off my computer when I'm finished playing my Cool School.
8. I can nearly completely dress myself although I still need help with buttons and getting my socks on with the heels in the right place.

And you bet I'm getting heaps of stickers for all this good stuff!

Poos!!!

I haven't spoken much about this (maybe because I desperately hung on to the hope that Elliot would finally master what has proven to be a particularly difficult challenge for him), but things have been really rough for all of us on the potty training front. For nearly two years now Elliot has been going two steps forward and one step back with trying to master the fine art of getting poos and wees into the toilet.

Here's a timeline of the struggle:

About 18 months ago: Elliot first expressed interest in using the potty and remarkably quickly started using a potty to do his wees on a somewhat regular basis. (He may have even done a poo or two in the potty, but mostly he liked to stick his thumb up his bum when he was pooing - or trying not to - and get poo on it and then leave pooey thumb prints around the house.)
My thoughts: Oh my gosh, this kid truly is advanced. I can't believe how easy he's making this whole potty-training nonsense! Well . . . except for the poo prints. That's not too magical.

A few months later: Elliot completely lost interest in using the potty and insisted on wearing a nappy again.
My thoughts: Oh well, he was so young to start with the potty training, let's not push him and wait until he's interested again. Besides, with Oliver on the way, there's surely going to be some ups and downs.

A few months later: Many of Elliot's friends have started to master potty-training and started wearing undies. Elliot again starts showing some interest in wearing undies and begins going wee in the toilet again.
My thoughts: Sweet! He'll surely get it this time. I mean he's a bit older now and all of his friends are doing too!

A few weeks later: The weeing in the toilet is short-lived, and I start putting quite a bit of pressure on him which in the end resulted in an emotional battle of wills one day where I tried to force him to sit on the toilet. Big mistake. Elliot reverts to lots of accidents and wanting to wear nappies again.
My thoughts: Seriously?!?!?! What is it going to take to get this kid to finally just use the damn toilet? Okay, take a chill pill. Back off. It's his body; he'll sort it out.

Six months ago or more: Elliot started to use the toilet relatively regularly for wees and began to have increasingly fewer wee accidents. He's been wearing undies every day since then, and we've cleaned poo out of these undies each and every day (up to three times a day some days!). In fact, until Mother's Day this year he had never (despite us purchasing numerous toilet seats and nifty steps, and toys and bribes, and stool softeners and whatever other idea anybody suggested to us) managed to actually deposit a poo into the toilet on his own. (The Mother's Day poo was a lovely one-off affair and a bit of a hoax since he actually did the little nugget in his pants, but it was wedged between his cheeks so I decided to make a big deal of it when he sat on the toilet, and it fell into the toilet. I know pathetic!)
My thoughts: I'm so utterly over poo. It's not even gross any more. It just is. I don't even flinch when I stick my finger in it. The thought that I'll be cleaning Elliot's pooey jocks for the rest of his childhood has become a very real possibility.

Three weeks ago: Out of the blue. "Mommy, I have to do a poo!" and Elliot runs to the toilet and actually truly completely does a poo in the toilet all on his own!!!!
My thoughts: Oh my god! Oh my god! Is this really finally happening? Now that he's done it once I'm sure it'll just click and that will be that, and the whole poo saga will be behind us.

The next day: Poo in the pants.
My thoughts: Oh. Well. Tomorrow he'll do it. I'm sure of it.

The next day: Poo in the pants.
My thoughts: Oh. Ok. Maybe tomorrow?

The next day and every day for two weeks: Poo in the pants.
My previous thoughts depressingly return: I'm so utterly over poo. It's not even gross any more. It just is. I don't even flinch when I stick my finger in it. The thought that I'll be cleaning Elliot's pooey jocks for the rest of his childhood has become a very real possibility. Are we actually going to have to homeschool him if he can't work this out?

A week ago: Poo in the toilet.
My thoughts: Keep it cool. Don't set yourself up for disappointment. It could be months, years even before this become a regular thing.

Since then: FIVE poos in the toilet, including THREE consecutive days of poos in the toilet, one of which was his first daycare toilet poo!!!!!
My thoughts: Hal-le-f'in-lu-jah!!!! So so proud! In fact, Paul and Elliot called me at work to let me know about the daycare poo, and I squealed loudly and in front of students, "Hooray!!! You did a poo!! I'm so proud of you, sweetheart!!!" Folks thought that was pretty hilarious. And I think they were embarrassed for me. I wasn't. Just completely joyous.

And now, the only way I can think to end this post is by saying, "Oh, please don't make me regret jinxing the poo-in-toilet-action by writing this blog post!"

I'm a shoe and hat kind of guy!

I'm guessing that you have no idea how much I love shoes and hats. As a matter of fact, I spend a good portion of my free time each day trucking back and forth from the living room to Elliot's, Mommy and Daddy's, and my bedrooms to bring out whichever pair of footwear or trendy headgear that has caught my fancy and repeating "shoe, shoe, hat, hat" over and over.

And if you were to take my shoes off of me when I'm really not ready, well, it isn't pretty. (But, I'm sure Mommy has already told you heaps about my temper.)

And if you don't believe how much I love my accessories, just check out how styling I look in Daddy's work boots and my favourite cool kid hat! ~ Oliver

 

Hen's brunch

A few weeks ago, I had a terrific day which started with one of my good friends, Katherine's, hen's brunch (a sort of bachelorette party for older gals with small children--gosh, we're party animals these days!) and ended with a lovely day of shopping, eating and talking with Amanda. And since I don't ever take pictures or talk about my friends, I made a point of taking photos and posting them for posterity's sake.

Katherine, the blushing bride-to-be

Katherine, Amanda and I

The internationally award-winning and extremely talkative balloon artist who graced us with his presence.

Look! I caught the bouquet!

Oh where oh where has the time for blogging gone?

Once upon a time, I made time for a somewhat regular routine of posting photos and updates about the boys and our lives on this blog. Lately the following reasons have made this much more difficult:

1. The whole family has been taking turns feeling like complete doodie, including (especially, in fact!) Paul. We're all over the weather and germs that this winter has brought!
2. I've decided that it's high time that I start printing this blog into a series of books (realising that each page adds to the total book price has made me keenly aware of my verbosity) which has eaten up heaps of my time as I go back through all the old posts to edit and reminisce (which might just take longer than the editing). But after several weeks of hard work, I've published the first one and a half years of our blog in a loverly 171 page volume!
3. We've been so excited and anxious for our upcoming trip to the States! Planning the trip and travel arrangements, buying airplane appropriate toys (including our new ipad), organising all the baby gear we've got to have once we get there, and daydreaming about all the fun we're going to have catching up with our family and friends that we haven't seen in soooo long (and all the great food we're going to eat) takes time.
4. I've joined the Global Corporate Challenge at work and being the overly competitive girl that I am has led me to come up with all sorts of ways to fill my day with achieving an ever higher step-count.

Now that we've only a couple more days before we fly away and knowing that I'll have so many exciting stories and photos to share once we get to the States, I reckon I better do some catch-up posting quick!